The intentions of German car giant Volkswagen to restructure its production facilities have encountered unexpectedly serious resistance at the highest corporate and political levels. The planned sale of the unprofitable plant in the city of Osnabrück to Israeli defense systems manufacturer Rafael has been called into question due to the categorical opposition of the State Investment Fund of Qatar, the world news agency Reuters reports. The Arab emirate has the status of the third largest investor in the European car company.
Doha controls 17% of the voting shares in Volkswagen and has two of its representatives on the supervisory board. The Qatari side has expressed deep reservations and concerns about the progress of the negotiations, citing the historically complicated and highly tense relations between the Middle East and the State of Israel. Such a development risks blocking or drastically slowing down one of the pillars of the large-scale anti-crisis strategy of the Wolfsburg brand. Against the background of the continuing contraction of the automotive market in the Old Continent, the management of the German concern is striving to quickly get rid of excess production capacity, redirecting it to enterprises in the defense industry sector.
At present, the assembly of vehicles in Osnabrück, where about 2,300 employees are employed, is planned to stop permanently within the next year. In the spring, it became known that the Israeli state-owned company Rafael is showing serious interest in buying the site in order to produce components for the "Iron Dome" missile shield there. (Iron Dome), with the two countries even initialing an official letter of intent.
However, financing or indirectly supporting a project closely linked to Tel Aviv's military-industrial complex places Qatar in an extremely delicate diplomatic position, especially in the context of the ongoing large-scale conflict in the Middle East:
The emirate has no established formal diplomatic relations with Israel.
The capital Doha serves as a critically important mediator and informal channel for negotiations between Israel and the Hamas movement, whose political representation is located precisely in the Qatari country.
Qatar's domestic and foreign policy traditionally links any possible normalization of bilateral relations with Israel only to the recognition and creation of an independent Palestinian state.
In an attempt to overcome the geopolitical stalemate, an alternative scenario for exiting the crisis is currently being studied. The local government of the German state of Lower Saxony, where the central management of the automobile concern is located in addition to the Osnabrück plant, could be involved as a potential mediator in the process. The regional authorities own the second largest block of shares in Volkswagen.
One of the options for compromise being discussed is the structuring of a joint venture between the German automaker and the Israeli Rafael. Such a legal form would avoid the direct participation of Qatari capital in the defense project. The regional minister of economics of Lower Saxony, Olaf Liss, who is also part of the supervisory board of the automobile conglomerate, remained silent regarding the Qatari position, but insisted that the company's management find a lasting and quick solution for the future of the workers. At the moment, Volkswagen, its supervisory board and the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar refuse to issue official statements on the case.